People say this always makes them smile. I get more comments about it than any others.

Case Study

Draw what you know eh? Would you believe that I used a mirror to get that facial expression? You would? I was only around 23 at the time.

I lived in the countryside from 1977 to 1985—and practically in the countryside before ’77—so I saw many people like this fine chap up and down our road and out in the farmyards. There are some creative and thrifty solutions used on farms, such as tyres to hold the covers on heaps of silage, and you’d often see fence repairs executed with old bed-steads. My grandparents weren’t farmers, but they had a bicycle wheel in the window of the outside loo in Co. Armagh.

The van door on the shed is me taking artistic license and being ridiculous. You’d never see that in real life. Probably.

Illustration: John White
Media: Pencil, studio markers, Polychromos, paper